There are a wide variety of ways to form integrated circuits. One conventional approach involves forming various devices and interconnects on a slice of semiconductor material. These operations form multiple copies of the same integrated circuit design on a single semiconductor wafer. FIG. 1A is a diagrammatic top view of an example semiconductor wafer 102 that includes multiple integrated circuits 106.
The semiconductor wafer is then diced or sawed to separate the integrated circuits. FIG. 1B is a diagrammatic perspective view of a sawing blade 108 that is positioned next to the wafer 102. The sawing blade 108 makes linear cuts along the saw streets 104, which are represented by dotted lines in FIG. 1A. The cuts are arranged to form a grid-like pattern on the wafer.
Referring next to FIG. 1C, various components for supporting and dicing the wafer are shown. FIG. 1C is a side view of the semiconductor wafer 102, a movable chuck table 116 for supporting the wafer and a sawing blade 108 for dicing the wafer 102. The bottom surface of the wafer 102 is adhered to a die attach film 110. The die attach film in turn is coupled with a base film 114 using an adhesive 112. The base film 114 is positioned on a top surface of the movable chuck table 116.
During a cutting operation, the sawing blade 108 spins at high speeds and the chuck table 116 moves the wafer 102 and its underlying layers towards the sawing blade 108. The sawing blade 108 then proceeds to cut through the wafer 102, the die attach film 110 and the adhesive 112. The sawing blade 108 also cuts into but not entirely through the base film 114, so that the base film 114 can help hold the dice together during the cutting operation. This process is repeated multiple times to cut the wafer along the saw streets 104 illustrated in FIG. 1A.
Once all of the cutting operations are completed, each die 106 is lifted off of the base film 114 and positioned onto a suitable substrate or lead frame. The die attach film is carried together with the die 106 and helps adhere the die 106 to its underlying substrate. In some implementations, the die 106 is then electrically connected to the substrate and encapsulated in molding material to form an integrated circuit package.
While existing arrangements and methods for dicing semiconductor wafers and die attach film work well, there are continuing efforts to further improve the effectiveness of such techniques.